How do I redirect all https traffic to http in Sinatra on heroku?

Question

I'm trying to redirect all https traffic to http using this in Sinatra

  get "*" do
      if request.secure?
        redirect request.url.gsub(/^https/, "http")
      else
        pass # continue execution
      end   
    end

However, on a custom domain on heroku, my browser shows me the error:

This is probably not the site you are looking for!

You attempted to reach www.[domain].com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as *.heroku.com.

My DNS is configured with the www subdomain having a CNAME pointing to [domain].herokuapp.com as per https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/custom-domains

Is this a DNS issue? Is buying a SSL certificate the only way to allow all https traffic to redirect to http, on heroku?

iain iain · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-10T17:32:14

If you were going to use that code then I'd make it a before filter, as that's really what it is.

However, if you've received a request at the application layer (which is where your Sinatra app sits on Heroku) then you need a certificate because the HTTP layer (where the Nginx proxy servers that deal with this sit) has already received the request and will attempt to deal with it as a secure connection but fail/raise an error because there's no certificate. That is the message you'll get if you try and reach an non SSL page/site via the https URI scheme. You can still access the site but the user has to click past a scary warning.

The only way I know of that may work without a certificate (but looking at this answer probably not) is if you had access to the Nginx configuration and did the rewrite of the URL (and probably some headers) there.

How do I redirect all https traffic to http in Sinatra on heroku?

1 Answers